Leiden University
To give up or to step up? The steering
of quangos by parliament and
minister
When damaged trust between parliament, minister and semi-autonomous government organizations leads to far-reaching political and organizational changes: ministerial turnover and de-autonomization.
Annie Svanishvili 8-6-2017
___________________________________________________________________________ Name: Annie Svanishvili
Student ID: s1350722
Study: Master Public Administration Faculty: Governance and Global Affairs University: Leiden University
Academic year: 2016/2017
Place and date: The Hague, June 8th 2017 Word count: 19.665
Preface
Before you lies the thesis “To give up or to step up? The steering of quangos by parliament and minister”, that is based on an analysis of four Dutch cases of which the most important debates between designated ministers or undersecretaries and the Dutch parliament are analyzed. I wrote this thesis in order to fulfill the graduate requirements of the Public Administration program at Leiden University, Faculty Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA).
I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. dr. Z. van der Wal for giving me a clear focus when writing this thesis. Even though he has a busy schedule, he always made time to answer my questions and give guidance while I was conducting this study. Without his support, I would not have been able to write this thesis.
To my mother, Inga Pavliashvili, I would like to say that I’m thankful for her unconditional support during whichever project I undertake. I appreciate her never-ending love and kindness. Further, I would like to thank my sister, Natia Svanishvili, for always being enthusiastic about my studies and motivating me to reach my goals.
To my dear friend, Cheyenne Almak: Thank you for proofreading my thesis and for being such a good friend for nearly a decade. You are one of a kind.
I hope you enjoy reading this study, Annie Svanishvili
Abstract
In recent years, several Dutch quasi-autonomous government organizations (quangos) performed badly, which either resulted in the designated minister or undersecretary resigning, or in a reduction of autonomies of the quango. We analyzed four cases – ProRail, the Tax Administration, the Schiphol-fire and the pgb-debacle – in order to get insight in what role the parliament (which has a controlling function) played in the decision(s) to employ these far-reaching political or organizational changes. To get insight in the principal-agent relations between parliament, minister and quango, along with specific characteristics of ministers, we conducted a qualitative, in-depth document analysis of important political debates in each case. We found that the role of the parliament is limited in the process of ministerial turnover, as well as in the process of de-autonomization. Ministerial characteristics, such as performance during debates and the minister’s involvement in earlier incidents, play a more prominent role in ministerial turnover. With de-autonomization we found that the relation between the minister and the quango is of greater importance than the relation between the parliament and the minister. Future research into this topic may have to employ mixed methods to generate results with greater external validity and generalizability when compared to the qualitative method that has been used in this study.
Inhoud
Preface ... iii
Abstract ... iv
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 Research aims and research question ... 3
2 Theoretical framework ... 5
2.1 Quangos: semi-autonomous government organizations ... 5
2.2 Principal and agent relations ... 6
2.3 Ministerial turnover: Role of the parliament and ministerial characteristics ... 7
2.4 The influence of trust on behavior ... 9
2.5 Low levels of trust ... 10
2.6 Distrust ... 12
3 Conceptual model ... 14
4 Methodology ... 16
4.1 Data collection ... 16
4.2 Case selection ... 17
4.3 Reliability and validity ... 17
4.4 Operationalization ... 18
5 Cases ... 22
5.1 Chronological overview ... 22
5.1.1 ProRail ... 22
5.1.2 Dutch Tax Administration ... 23
5.1.3 Schiphol-fire ... 25 5.1.4 Pgb-debacle ... 25 5.2 Case results ... 26 5.2.1 ProRail ... 26 Parliament – Minister ... 26 Minister – Quango ... 28 De-autonomization ... 29 5.2.2 Tax Administration ... 29 Parliament – Minister ... 29 Minister – Quango ... 31 De-autonomization ... 32
5.2.3 Schiphol-fire ... 32 Parliament – Minister ... 32 Minister – Quango ... 35 De-autonomization ... 35 5.2.4 Pgb-debacle ... 35 Parliament – Minister ... 35 Minister – Quango ... 37 De-autonomization ... 38 6 Comparative Analysis ... 39 6.1 Ministerial turnover ... 40
6.1.1 The level of trust and the two strategies ... 40
6.1.2 Ministerial performance ... 42
6.1.3 Clean and tainted ministers ... 44
6.1.4 Timing of the incident and debate ... 46
6.2 De-autonomization ... 47
6.2.1 Additional results: third layer relationship and history of the quango ... 48
7 Discussion ... 51
7.1 The level of trust ... 51
7.2 Ministerial performance ... 53
7.3 Tainted ministers and timing ... 54
8 Conclusion ... 55
9 Bibliography ... 58
Appendix 1 – Number of debates and time between debates ... 66
1
Introduction
In recent years, four Dutch semi-autonomous government agencies performed problematically, either resulting in repositioning of these organizations or in ministers taking responsibility by resigning. First, the case of ProRail – a state-owned enterprise that used to be part of the Dutch Railway Company and is fully owned and financed by the Dutch government – shows that problematic performance can have far-reaching consequences. After years of problems on the rail, exceeded budgets, withholding information and the failing high-speed train Fyra, the designated undersecretary, Wilma Mansveld, resigned in October 2015. Roughly a year later, the new undersecretary, Sharon Dijksma, decided to make this railway company a ZBO, an independent administrative body that is not hierarchically subordinate to a ministry, but is still supervised by the minister (van Thiel and van der Wal, 2010: 383), in order to increase control over this organization.1 The government can now approve the budget of ProRail, control the quality of their work and make formal rules.
The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration shows a similar process. A financial disaster occurred in 2016, when a leave arrangement called Switch was introduced. Switch was a severance scheme, set up for employees who wanted to leave the organization under favorable conditions. The goal was to scrap around 5000 administrative, low-skilled jobs until 2023. However, too many, mainly high-skilled and elder employees made use of Switch. The budget was exceeded with 70 million Euros (Wiebes, 2016).2
After these financial failures the government decided to make the Tax Administration part of the Ministry of Finance again, reversing some of the autonomies of this semi-autonomous organization. The Dutch Tax Administration used to be an independent administrative body (in Dutch: ZBO), executing a public task under the responsibility of the parent ministry (Trias Politica Zeeland, 2014: 4). This organization now functions as a directorate-general of the Ministry of Finance, meaning it is a department of this ministry (Borstlap and Joustra, 2017: 30). By the contrary, the undersecretary, Eric Wiebes, responsible for Switch, did not resign.
1 Trouw (N.B), ‘Kabinet maakt einde aan zelfstandigheid ProRail,’. Retrieved from:
https://www.trouw.nl/home/kabinet-maakt-einde-aan-zelfstandigheid-prorail~a1ad171a/ (visited on March 3rd 2017).
Intriguingly, two similar scandals occurred at autonomous government agencies or quangos3, but these did not result in changes in the organizational relation between the ministry and the quango. The third scandal, in which an executive agency performed badly, happened in October 2005. A fire that broke out in a detention center in the Dutch place Schiphol-Oost, the so-called Schiphol-fire (in Dutch: Schipholbrand), killed eleven detained illegal immigrants. One immigrant had thrown a burning cigarette in the trashcan in his cell and authorities assumed that this caused the fire (Dutch Safety Board, 2006).
Research on the incident, however, stated that this fire would not have killed and injured anyone if the organizations that were responsible for the detention center, the Custodial Institutions Agency (in Dutch: Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen, DJI) and the Government Buildings Agency (in Dutch: Rijksgebouwendienst) would have complied with the rules of fire safety. After a critical report was published by the Dutch Safety Board in 2006, the ministers that were politically responsible – minister Donner (Ministry of Security and Justice) and minister Dekker (former Ministry of Housing) – resigned.4 In this case, however, there were no further organizational consequences for the DJI and the Government Buildings Agency.
The fourth and final scandal discussed here, is that of the personal care budgets (pgb) provided by the Social Security Bank (in Dutch: Sociale Verzekeringsbank, SVB). SVB provides budgets for personal care to people which allows them to choose their own caretaker. After a new payment system was introduced in which SVB was assigned to pay out the budgets, the problems began; people did not receive their budgets and if they did, they were long overdue.5 There were multiple political debates about this issue, but SVB is still the organization responsible for carrying out this task, while maintaining its original structure.6 The designated undersecretary, van Rijn, did not resign.
The four examples illustrate how performance deficiencies can result in organizational reforms or ministerial turnover, and how these consequences can vary per case. In some cases, far-reaching consequences are employed by the parent ministry and parliament to address
3 A quango is an organization that executes a public task on behalf of a ministry. The theoretical framework gives a more elaborated definition of this concept.
4 De Volkskrant (2006), ‘Donner en Dekker treden af na rapport’. Retrieved from:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/donner-en-dekker-treden-af-na-rapport~a812575/ (visited on March 12th 2017).
5 Nu (2015), ‘Druk van Rijn neemt toe na pgb-chaos’. Retrieved from:
http://www.nu.nl/politiek/4039694/druk-van-rijn-neemt-toe-pgb-chaos.html (visited on March 12th 2017).
6 For an overview of political debates about the chaos, see: VNG (N.N.), ‘Tweede Kamerdebatten over pgb-problemen’, Retrieved from: https://vng.nl/onderwerpenindex/sociaal-domein/persoonsgebonden-budget-pgb/tweede-kamerdebatten-over-pgb-problemen (visited on March 29th 2017).
incidents or problematic performance, while in other cases no such mechanisms and reforms are introduced. The Tax Administration and ProRail now both have a different legal status; closer to their parent ministry and with less autonomies than before, while the organizations involved in the pgb-debacle and the Schiphol-fire were not reduced in their autonomies.
Similarly, in not all cases did the minister or undersecretary resign after the quango they were responsible for performed badly. Ministerial turnover occurred in the case of the Schiphol-fire, as well as in the case of ProRail. In the Tax Administration and the pgb-debacle, the designated undersecretaries, responsible for the projects that turned out to be disastrous, did not resign.
In all the cases the parliament had concerns which were voiced, but they did not undertake a significant amount of action in all cases. There are political debates, in which the responsible minister is questioned and in some cases even resigned, but there are no far-reaching consequences for the unsuccessful government agencies, with regard to their legal status. Table 1 gives a schematic overview of the characteristics of the four cases.
Overview of cases Table 1 Ministerial turnover yes no Reduction of autonomies of quango
yes ProRail Tax Administration
no Schiphol-fire (DJI and the Government Buildings Agency)
Pgb-debacle (SVB)
1.1 Research aims and research question
The cases present us an intriguing research puzzle. To solve this puzzle, the aim of this research is to explain the difference in the actions of the parliament and parent ministries, with regard to the steering of quangos. Clearly, communication and control mechanisms may increase, in some cases even take a different form, when the level of trust between parliament and the responsible minister declines after problematic performance of a quango. The most far-reaching consequence after such a decline, is placing the quango closer to the parent
the cases show that this does not always happen, it is relevant to look into the motives to increase control over quangos and the ones politically responsible in such significant ways.
This research puzzle gives rise to various interesting research questions: What is the relation between the parliament and the responsible minister(s) and what part does this play in the de-autonomization of quangos and the resignation of ministers? How can political dynamics lead to ministerial resignation and explain de-autonomization of quangos? How do parliament and the minister interact and in what ways does this influence increased control over the quango? Specifically, our study if guided by the following research question: How can dynamics in the relationship between parliament and parent ministries because of an incident with a quango, explain far-reaching consequences for the responsible minister and the quango after that incident?
This research adds value to the literature on agentification and political-administrative relations, because it explores changing interactions as a result of a worsening of the relation between ministries and agencies, by looking at the role of the parliament. It is clear that a change in trust occurs when a quango performs badly, and that this, in turn may lead to a change in a variety of organizational aspects such as budgets, rules, processes or even the legal status of the organization (Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014: 4).
However, current research does not tell us what the role of the parliament exactly is when it is decided to make such far-reaching political and organizational changes. This research aims to explain this by conducting an in-depth comparative study about the political-administrative relationships between the parliament and parent ministry and its influence on the steering of quangos.
2
Theoretical framework
After providing an introduction to quangos and principal-agent relationships, this section explores the relationship between parliament and parent ministries, by presenting literature about ministerial turnover and de-autonomization of quangos as a result of damaged trust between politics and administration and the role of certain ministerial characteristics in this matter.
2.1 Quangos: semi-autonomous government organizations
Literature about ideal typical, formal political-administrative relations states that politicians make plans that are executed by the administration. Both fields execute their task independently of each other (Schedler and Eichen, 2013: 371). The administration has a high degree of discretion in the technical implementation of political goals (Lipsky, 1980; Svara, 2001: 176-177; Schedler and Eichen, 2013: 371). The relation between elected officials and the administration is therefore assumed to be an interplay between professional independence and political control (Svara, 2001: 179), resulting in different kinds of political-administrative relations.
One example of such a relationship, that plays a central role in this research, are quangos; organizations that operate at arms’ length of the government. These organizations have a large professional independence when it comes to performing public tasks, while being dependent on the government for financial resources (van Thiel and van der Wal, 2010: 378; Pollit et al., 2001: 274 and 275). In order to find a balance between performing public tasks and independece, there needs to be a certain amount of political control (Schedler and Eichen, 2013: 376).
Based on the work of Talbot (2004), Overman and van Thiel (2016: 612) state that quangos (semi-autonomous organizations) are structurally disaggregated from a ministry that carry out public tasks and have more business-like work approaches than traditional government organizations. Regardless of these similarities, there are different types of quangos. Overman and van Thiel (2016: 613) distinguish three main types of semi-autonomous organizations. Type 1 is “a semi-semi-autonomous unit within the government, without legal independence”. The type 1 quango is therefore hierarchically subordinate to a ministry and closest to the government (e.g. an agency). With this type there is full ministerial accountability about policies and its implementation by the quango (Algemene Rekenkamer,
Type 2 is a statutory body with legal independence, meaning that the organization is not hierarchically subordinate to a ministry and has extended autonomies, while still being under the responsibility of the ministry (e.g. Dutch ZBOs). The ministerial accountability is limited to the policy and its regulations (Algemene Rekenkamer, 2012: 2). With a ZBO a ministry can appoint and dismiss directors, determine the salary of these directors and reverse bad decisions made by the ZBO.7
Type 3 quango is “a private law-based organization, such as state-owned companies” (Overman and van Thiel, 2016: 613). This type has the highest degree of autonomy. Here, the ministerial accountability limits itself to regulating the market shares (Algemene Rekenkamer, 2012: 2). Table 2 shows how the influence of the responsible ministry declines with each type of quango.
Semi-autonomous government organizations Table 2
Type 1 (e.g. Agency) Full ministerial
accountability, hierarchically subordinate to ministry.
Accountability about policies and policy implementation.
Type 2 (e.g. ZBO) Limited ministerial
accountability, not
hierarchically subordinate; legal independence.
Accountability about policy regulations.
Type 3 (e.g. state-owned enterprise)
Private law-based organization.
Accountability about regulating market-shares.
2.2 Principal and agent relations
Even though agentification – as a result of the rise of New Public Management – is a new way of confronting problems (Hood, 1991), literature about parent ministries and quangos emphasizes that a variety of new challenges emerged with these autonomous organizational arrangements that became popular in the eighties and nineties. As stated above, quangos are given more autonomy than other government organizations, so they can decide themselves how to carry out their public task (van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011: 784). Because quangos have greater autonomy, the parliament and parent ministries, as the principals, face more
7 Rijksoverheid (N.N.), ‘Zelfstandige Bestuursorganen (zbo’s)’. Retrieved from:
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/rijksoverheid/inhoud/zelfstandige-bestuursorganen (visited on March 29th 2017).
uncertainties with regard to these semi-autonomous organizations. The principal-agent problem therefore plays a prominent role in this relationship (van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011; van Thiel and van der Wal, 2010: 8). The core of the principal-agent problem is the risk of bureaucratic drift. Because the autonomous agencies have more discretionary authority, controlling and monitoring becomes harder for the principal(s).
Van Thiel and Yesilkagit (2011: 784), furthermore, describe multi-layered principal-agent relationships that have expanded with the rise of quangos. They add another layer to the traditional principal-agent relations that have been described by Strøm (1985). Primarily, there is a principal-agent relationship between voters (principal) and politicians (agent) that are elected by the voters and act on behalf of them. Bureaucrats (agents) then carry out decisions that are made by politicians (principal). The last layer van Thiel and Yesilkagit (2011) added, is the delegation of tasks from the bureaucrats (principal) to quangos (agent). This means that the ministry has to account for the quango to the parliament (van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011: 789).
The multi-layered relationship shows that there is no direct communication between the parliament and the quango; the ministry is dominant in this relation (van Thiel and van der Wal, 2010: 380-381). The relation between the ministry and the quango is therefore the most important for the quango. However, the role of the parliament is still of great importance. The parliament acts on behalf of citizens, so in order to remain legitimate (Laver and Shepsle, 1994: 7) the parliament strives to exert its influence over the minister and therefore indirectly steers the quango. The importance of the parliament in this matter is discussed in the following chapter (see: chapter 2.3)
Because quangos are the professionals that carry responsibility for the technical implementation of policies, asymmetrical information may become a problem. The ministry has an advantage over the parliament when it comes to knowledge; the minister is obliged to inform the parliament about its policies. The advantage, however, enables the agent to act opportunistically and take actions that could harm the principal, for instance by withholding information (Jensen and Meckling, 1976: 270). This threat causes uncertainties between the parliament and the ministries to rise.
2.3 Ministerial turnover: Role of the parliament and ministerial characteristics
Literature about this topic has no definite answer to when ministers resign. There are, however, a few circumstances in which resignation might occur, according to Tompson and Tillotsen (1999: 49).
A minister might resign when she acts in her public capacity without her department backing her up. In this case, personal errors might be made, such as private indiscretion or political misjudgment. This indicates that faults or scandals from a minister’s personal life, such as fraud or infidelity, might lead to the resignation of that particular minister.
Policy errors are another circumstance mentioned by Tompson and Tillotsen (1999: 49). In this case, the errors can be directly linked to the minister. This goes particularly for withholding information. The authors argue that a minister will be likely to resign when it comes out that she has been withholding information from the parliament, or deliberately misinformed the parliament.
It is particularly interesting that literature about the resignation of ministers (Tompson and Tillotsen, 1999: 49; Berlinksi, Dewan and Dowding, 2010; Fisher, 2012: 603), states that politics play a central role in the resignation of a minister, while ministerial characteristics could also contribute. The minister is held accountable by the parliament for her mistakes, confirming our earlier statements about the significant amount of influence that the parliament has on the actions of ministers. A minister’s moral obligation to resign does not automatically lead to a resignation. This leads us to believe that a combination of political influence and ministerial characteristics can explain ministerial turnover.
Tompson and Tillotsen (1999: 49) offer that the parliament will consider two strategies in determining the resignation of a minister. They can decide that the minister should tough-it-out. With this strategy, the parliament gives the minister the benefit of the doubt in order to solve the issues. In this case, the parliament protects the minister from resignation (Dewan and Myatt, 2007). The other strategy is to consider the amount of damage a minister does to the government. When the parliament decides that the minister seriously harms the government and letting the minister go would benefit the government, she can decide to go for the damage-limitation strategy. In some cases, the parliament first lets a minister tough-it-out before employing the damage-limitation strategy and pressuring a minister to resign.
Closely related to this, are the number of scandals that a minister has been involved with during the government term (Dewan and Myatt, 2007: 64). This is supported by the principal of tainted and clean ministers. Dewan and Myatt (2007: 64) state that a tainted minister is known for his involvement in one or more scandals. A tainted minister is,
therefore, more likely to be pressured to resign when another scandal occurs, making the parliament decide to use the damage-limitation strategy. A clean minister, however, has more chance of surviving a scandal, because she has a scandal-free record. In this case, the parliament might decide to give the minister another shot and protect her from resignation, employing the tough-it-out strategy.
To conclude this matter, literature states that ministers are more likely to resign either in a reshuffle, or when the government falls, which is plausible given the principal of tainted and clean ministers (Berlinski, Dewan and Dowding, 2007: 248). The longer a minister is assigned, the more time there is for scandals to occur and come out. So ministers are more likely to resign when the end of the government term is nearby. In conclusion, the timing of a scandal can influence the number of scandals a minister is involved with and therefore plays a role in ministerial turnover. We formulate the following hypothesis to explore the matter of tainted ministers:
H1: A minister will be more likely to resign after bad performance of the quango she oversees, if she is tainted.
So here, a tainted minister would lead to the parliament employing the damage-limitation strategy. This hypothesis further implies that the resignation of the tainted minister will be near the end of the government term, because then the chances of a minister having been involved in a scandal, are higher.
2.4 The influence of trust on behavior
The principal-agent relations and the uncertainties that can come with it, emphasize the importance of a trusting relation between the parliament and the responsible ministry. We already established that the parliament can have an important role in the steering of quangos, through the responsible minister. Therefore, trust between the parliament and the minister is relevant. In this respect, it is important to note that we view ‘trust’ as actions that are related to behaviors of the parties that are involved (van de Walle and Six, 2014: 168). Seeing trust as behavior indicates that the relation is based on observable risk-taking behavior, in which the actor is willing to take a risk and be vulnerable (Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014: 9).
Another issue that should be addressed, is that this research treats trust and distrust as two different concepts, rather than two sides of the same coin (van de Walle and Six, 2014: 162; Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014: 14). Some literature about trust argues that trust does not equal an absence of distrust and distrust does not equal a total absence of trust. An individual
about the purity of that person’s intentions. This example illustrates a situation where trust simultaneously contains distrust. Further, van de Walle and Six (2014: 168) state that trust and distrust are related to behavior. Therefore, we assume that trust and distrust have a different impact on the interactions – behavior – between the parliament and the parent ministry.
A variety of authors emphasizes the role of trust in inter-organizational relationships and its effects on interactions between organizational actors (Bachmann, 2001; Dirks and Ferrin, 2001; Gulati and Nickerson, 2008; van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011; Bouckaert, 2012; Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014; Bachmann, Gillespie and Priem, 2015). Dirks and Ferrin (2001) find it unclear how the benefits of trust exactly occur. Some scholars (Gulati and Nickerson, 2008: 690; Bachmann and Witteloostuijn, 2009: 54) state that trust increases confidence in the behavior of the other actor, and that this positive expectation reduces uncertainties between them. Therefore, trust is especially important in principal-agent relationship that are characterized by high levels of uncertainty.
Considering that trust is an uncertainty-reducing mechanism, trust in the relationship between the principal and the agent will improve their interactions (van Thiel and van der Wal, 2010: 381). Krouwel and Abts (2007: 258) say the following about trusting relations: “Confidence, despite its conditionality, frees individuals from the need of constant monitoring and thus can ultimately take the form of a naive and unquestioned leap of faith”. Trust-literature therefore argues that high levels of trust are characterized by low monitoring, and infrequent interactions between parliament, parent ministry and quango. Based on a leap of faith, certain routines have been established and opportunistic behavior is less likely to occur because it is not beneficial (van der Walle and Six, 2014: 159).
2.5 Low levels of trust
Literature about trust, according to van Thiel and Yesilkagit (2011: 788), states that it is easier to break trust than to create it, but when treating trust and distrust as distinctive matters, the inability to trust the intentions of the other party does not automatically mean that there is distrust between them. It rather means that a low levels of trust exists between the two parties (van de Walle and Six, 2014: 159). Even though the statement that ‘breaking trust is easy’ is not elaborated on, it might imply that breaking trust equals a total lack of trust. When making a distinction between trust, low levels of trust and distrust, like authors as van de Walle and Six (2014: 169) do, breaking trust is treated as a nuanced matter. Considering that low levels of trust exist, a good and trusting relation does not instantly lead to distrust when the other
party does not act according to the expectations. We rather assume that the level of trust might drop and result in low levels of trust, after which an unsuccessful restoration of trust does lead to distrust.
Low levels of trust influence perceptions, but are less likely to influence behaviors. With low levels of trust even well-intended actions are either perceived as negative, not perceived at all, or perceived as harmful. We specifically point out that trust is still at the basis of low levels of trust (van de Walle and Six, 2014: 169). A loss of trust will therefore lead to negative attitudes from the principal towards the agent (i.e. skepticism), but not necessarily to increased interactions between the parliament and the parent ministry in the form of reduced autonomies or the resignation of the minister that is responsible.
We can make a link between these negative attitudes from the parliament towards the minister and the tough-it-out strategy that has been elaborated on earlier in this theoretical framework. In the case of low levels of trust, the quango has shown faulty behavior for which the minister is held accountable. This leads to negative expectations of the parliament with regard to further behavior of its agents (the ministry and indirectly the quango), lowering the level of trust between them. Instead of undertaking drastic actions, the parliament decides to give the minister some time to “tough it out” and fix the faults. In this case, there are no significant changes in the behavior of the principal towards the agent. The minister is not pressured to resign – apart from the moral obligation that the minister might have – and the parliament does not increase control over the quango by reducing autonomies. These steps are not taken because there is still trust in the minister; just less than before. The following hypotheses examines the link between low levels of trust and its effects on the responsible minister (H2) and the quango (H3):
H2: When bad performance of the quango results in low levels of trust between the parliament and the parent ministry, the parliament will not demand ministerial turnover.
H3: When bad performance of the quango results in low levels of trust between the parliament and the parent ministry, the parliament will not demand de-autonomization of the quango.
A minister’s ability to defend his policies8 can be important in this matter; the better a minister is in defending his policies during debates, the more likely the parliament will give him the benefit of the doubt (Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, 2008: 170). The parliament will
employ the tough-it-out strategy on this minister, because good ministerial performance benefits the restoration of trust.
H4: If the ministerial performance of a minister during debates is good, the parliament will employ the tough-it-out strategy instead of the damage limitation strategy.9
2.6 Distrust
Trust literature indicates that distrust, on the other hand, does have a significant effect on the behaviors of the actors that are involved. Oomsels and Bouckaert (2014: 11) describe distrust as followed: “Active avoidance of risk, inspires atomization, regulation and behavioral control, which protect actors against possible abuse of their vulnerability, which is argued to lead to foregone opportunities and associated high opportunity costs”. With this definition, they imply that distrust leads to active control from one actor over another, which may result in less collaboration and a deterioration of relationships (Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014: 13). So, when trust turns into distrust after incidents the interactions between both parties are likely to change (van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011: 788).
Van de Walle and Six (2014: 162) state that distrust can be seen as the assured assumption that the other party has intended harm for them. As a result of distrust, this assumption is likely to increase the interactions between the principal(s) and the quango. Therefore, the principals will actively monitor the quango (Krouwel and Abts, 2007: 258). The parliament can monitor the ministries (and indirectly the quangos) by using different types of control mechanisms, such as demanding political debates, conducting inquiries, asking chamber questions and file several motions (e.g. motion of no confidence).10 The ministry interacts with the quango by performing audit procedures and by receiving feedback about the policy implementation and budgets through reports, off course depending on the type of quango. When there is distrust, (additional) formal procedures and regulation will be designed to constrain and prevent further untrustworthy behavior, therefore increasing control over the quango (Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014: 11; Bachmann, Gillespie and Priem, 2015: 1126).
We can also link distrust to the damage-limitation strategy, a concept that is discussed above and implies that the parliament distrusts the minister when it comes to the steering of the quango. The parliament assumes that the minister will do more damage to the government
9 The methods section gives an overview of “good” and “bad” ministerial performance (see: operationalization, pp. 17 and the coding scheme, pp. 18)
10 Parlement & Politiek (N.B.), ‘Controle Tweede Kamer’. Retrieved from:
and its quango if he does not resign. Literature about this topic suggests that this assumption of the parliament will likely result in the resignation of the minister (see for example: Woodhouse, 1993).
Not only can this strategy be linked to ministerial turnover, but also to de-autonomization of quangos. Distrust results in changing interactions between the principal and the agent. The parliament distrust the minister, after which she is likely to resign and the new minister is obliged to effectively control the quango. In order to prevent further damage, the control over the quango may also be stricter, just in case something could go wrong that could damage the image of the government and quango even further. In order to ensure the new-found trust of the parliament, the minister will be more likely to make far-reaching decisions about the position of the quango. Therefore, we formulate the following hypotheses about ministerial turnover (H5) and de-autonomization (H6):
H5: When there is distrust between the parliament and parent ministry, diminishing the credibility of the minister’s assurance, the principals are more likely to demand ministerial turnover of the designated minister.
H6: When there is distrust between the parliament and parent ministry, the principals are more likely to demand de-autonomization of the quango.
So here, distrust results in the parliament using the damage-limitation strategy. The minister will be more likely to resign and control over the quango is more likely to increase. Note that these far-reaching consequences imply that the minister was unable to re-establish trust, which has to do with the ministerial performance (the ability of the minister to defend his policies during debates). Finally note that, based on the literature, distrust is the main driver for significant political and organizational changes, while ministerial characteristics, like the number of scandals the minister has been involved with and his abilities to defend his policies may also play a role during the process of trust restoration.
3
Conceptual model
End of government term
Tainted minister Damage-limitation
strategy
Distrust De-autonomization
Scandal Clean minister Tough-it-out Ministerial turnover strategy
Low level of Ministerial performance
trust
Figure 1
In the conceptual model the relationships between a scandal, ministerial characteristics, the role of the parliament and trust are visualized. A scandal with a clean minister will lead to a lower level of trust than before. The parliament will choose to give the responsible minister the benefit of the doubt by using the tough-it-out strategy. The minister is less likely to resign in this situation. We assume that de-autonomization of the quango will similarly not occur, because the actions of the principal will not (significantly) change in this situation.
When a scandal occurs and the responsible minister is already tainted, we expect that the parliament will employ the damage-limitation strategy, because the minister might do sustained damage to the government. We also expect that a minister is more likely to be tainted at the end of the government term. This increases the likelihood of ministerial turnover. Further, we believe that de-autonomization is more likely to follow after the resignation of the responsible minister, in order to limit the chances on incidents and bad performance in the future.
Even low levels of trust might eventually result in ministerial turnover and de-autonomization of quangos. When a minister is given the benefit of the doubt after a scandal, and he fails to restore the trust of the parliament, either by successfully defending his policy during debates or improving the performance of the quango, the parliament is likely to decide that the minister does more bad than good to the government. Low levels of trust and the
tough-it-out strategy then make place for distrust and the damage-limitation strategy. Distrust changes the behavior of one actor towards the other, in this case from the principal towards the responsible minister.
We expect that the parliament will employ the damage-limitation strategy when a minister cannot effectively defend his policy and is therefore unable to restore the trust of the parliament. Through this process chain, low levels of trust might lead to de-autonomization and ministerial turnover. When it becomes clear that the minister had been unable to steer the quango correctly, then the parliament might consider that it is better to not place the quango too far away from the ministry in the future.
4
Methodology
This research employs a deductive, qualitative research method, in order to perform a comparative small-N case study (see: case selection). Through the cases we qualitatively explore the relation between the independent and dependent variables. There are two dependent variables in this research. The first is de-autonomization – the reversion of autonomies or repositioning – of quangos after problematic performance of the quango. The second dependent variable is ministerial turnover11 after bad performance of the quango the minister oversees.
The independent variables that might explain variation in de-autonomization of quangos and ministerial turnover, focus on ministerial characteristics and dynamics between parliament and ministries. More specifically, the ministerial characteristics, as independent variables, are “tainted” or “clean” ministers and ministerial performance before and during debates. The dynamics between parliament and minister are the usage of the tough-it-out strategy, the damage limitation strategy, low levels of trust and distrust between the parliament and minister. These independent variables may influence whether or not de-autonomization takes place after problematic performance of quangos and whether or not a minister resigns after bad performance of the quango; two far-reaching consequences of poorly functioning quangos.
4.1 Data collection
The research employs a document-analysis by relying on qualitative primary and secondary resources, where primary sources are produced at the time of the (historical) event, while secondary sources are documents that are written with the use of primary sources (Lombard, 2010: 150; Scheuler, 2014: 163). Government documents are the basis of this analysis, because the research emphasizes the relation between the Dutch parliament and ministers. Therefore, primary sources are (important) debates and reports of parliamentary inquiries. Other primary sources are chamber questions and letters between the minister and parliament. Secondary sources are newspaper articles that report on the same issue in a more general way, providing insight in the course of action during the incidents.
Due to possible time constraints, we do not conduct interviews or surveys. We believe that we can get insight in the relationship between minister and parliament by analyzing political debates, especially because we perceive trust to be behavioral (van de Walle and Six,
2014: 168; Oomsels and Bouckaert, 2014: 9), and therefore observable by looking at behaviors between actors.
4.2 Case selection
In this research, four seemingly similar cases are analyzed. By taking a closer look, it comes forward that everything is different, from the circumstances to the outcomes (see: Table 1, pp. 3). Therefore, a qualitative comparative analysis approach is employed. The necessary and sufficient conditions of ministerial turnover and de-autonomization of quangos are of great importance when evaluating our hypotheses (Toshkov, 2016: 270).
To elaborate on the case selection, two cases show de-autonomization of quangos while the other two cases do not show such a process. The cases that show de-autonomization are the Dutch Tax Administration – a former ZBO that is now a directorate-general of the Ministry of Finance – and ProRail, a ZBO that used to be a privatized state-owned company, but has is autonomies reversed after bad performance. The cases that have not shown de-autonomization are the Schiphol-fire, that killed eleven people, and the pgb-chaos, that resulted in unpaid salaries for months. Ministerial turnover occurred in two cases, namely in the case of ProRail and the Schiphol-fire. In the case of the Tax Administration and the pgb-debacle, the responsible ministers did not resign. In all the cases the quangos have performed badly and the consequences for society have been significant.
4.3 Reliability and validity
Document analyses do not ensure consistent results, because such analyses are influenced by the interpretation of the researcher. Another researcher may interpret the same documents differently when replicating the study. Focusing on primary government documents could also influence reliability. On the one hand, these documents are reliable in themselves, because they have been produced at the time of the event or shortly after; the documents do not change. On the other hand, the documents are written in a certain context that should be taken into account when conducting a document analysis (Scheuler, 2014: 164).
In order to enhance the reliability of this research, a coding scheme is put in place to conduct a thematic analysis (Bryman, 2012: 13). The coding scheme should enhance the reliability of the document analysis, because it structures the analysis by using codes (Bryman, 2012: 13). The elements that should be focused on are presented. This enhances the consistency of the analysis and the results.
Determining the right indicators for in the coding scheme enhances the internal validity of the research. However, not all variables that could be related to the relationship between parliament, parent ministry and quango (e.g. informal communication) are included in the research, due to time constraints. To proceed, the external validity is not high in small-N case studies, because the research only focuses on a couple of cases (Bryman, 2012: 69). Therefore, the results can typically only be applied to the selected cases and statements about the findings should be modest.
4.4 Operationalization
Hypothesis 1 covers the principal of ministerial turnover of tainted ministers. In order to measure if a minister is tainted, we look into the number of previous scandals a minister has been involved in, with the help of newspaper articles. These give information about such scandals. In reports about debates, we focus on references to these scandals, in order to determine if former incidents are an issue for the parliament. We focus on the time that a scandal has come out until the ministerial turnover.
Hypotheses 2 and 3 examine the link between low levels of trust, the tough-it-out strategy and far-reaching consequences for minister and quango. We analyze this matter by examining the type of control mechanisms that the parliament utilizes and the tone of the members of the parliament (both mild to skeptical) during the deciding debates – debates that are considered tough by the media and determinative for the future of the minister and quango. The time frame that we focus on here is the moment that the parliament became aware of the problematic performance or scandal until the problems were solved, in this case by the minister and the quango themselves.
We expect to see that the parliament made use of chamber questions and motions of sadness, which is the lightest motion of the parliament (in Dutch: Motie van Treurnis). Newspaper articles, as well as reports of parliamentary meetings, debates and Second Chamber questions give insight in these concepts.
The fourth hypothesis covers ministerial performance. If a minister is good at defending her policy, answering questions and taking responsibility, the parliament will be more likely to give the minister the benefit of the doubt. We examine this by the following issues: a minister either answers questions or avoids them and a minister either takes responsibility or denies responsibility by blaming others.
The fifth and sixth hypotheses examine the link between distrust, de-autonomization and ministerial turnover. To measure this, the emphasis lies on the use of severe control
mechanisms (motion of disapproval, motion of no-confidence, parliamentary inquiry) from the parliament over the responsible minister and a tone of (extreme) disappointment and mistrust. In this case, the time frame is the moment that the parliament became aware of the problematic performance or scandal, until the far-reaching consequences took place.
The use of these severe control mechanisms are examined by analyzing newspaper articles and government documents: reports of deciding debates, Chamber letters and questions. Second Chamber letters give a good overview of the issues that the parliament has with a minister. The number of chamber questions gives insight in the restoration of trust; the more questions the parliament asks, the less it is satisfied with the answers the minister gives.
Table 3 gives insight on the indicators that should be focused on when carrying out the document analysis. We use NVivo 11 to conduct the document analysis of the deciding debates. This program shows the percentage coverage of the codes in the coded reports of the deciding debates.
Document Analysis – Coding Scheme Table 3
Concept Definition Code Indicators
Tainted minister A minister that has been
involved in a scandal during his time as a minister which the public knows of (Dewan and Myatt, 2007: 64).
Previous scandals
Has been involved in
(a) scandal(s)
before; parliament referring to previous missteps during debates.
Clean minister A minister that has not
been involved in scandals during his time as a minister (Dewan and Myatt, 2007: 64).
Clean record Has not been involved in other scandals.
Ministerial performance
The ability (or success) of a minister to defend his policy during a debate with the parliament. 1. Good ministerial performance 2. Bad 1. Minister takes responsibility for incident or problems; minister acknowledges errors;
performance debate; minister provided relevant information; minister answers questions. 2. Minister blames others; minister denies errors; minister avoids questions; minister is reluctant to share information.
Low level of trust –
Tough-it-out strategy
A loss of trust that has no significant effects on actions in an exchange relationship, but does lead to negative attitudes from one actor towards the other (van de Walle and Six, 2014). In this case the parliament employs the tough-it-out strategy because she believes that the minister can successfully restore trust after a scandal, allowing the minister to stay (Tompson and Tillotsen, 1999: 49). Similarly, the organizational structure of the quango will not change.
Mild control mechanisms parliament Chamber questions; letters of government; motion of sadness; mild expressions of disappointment; parliament still has hope; “How can we fix this?”; “We want an explanation”; “The minister should fix the problems”; “We are curious how the minister will solve this”; “The minister is competent enough to steer the quango”.
Distrust – A severe loss of trust that
results in the assured belief that the other party does
Severe control mechanisms parliament
Parliamentary
inquiry held; Motion of disapproval;
Damage limitation strategy
intended harm (van der Walle and Six, 2014: 162). Significant changes in interactions between two actors, result in damage control by increased monitoring behavior (Krouwel and Abts, 2007: 258). The parliament employs the damage limitation strategy because she believes that the minister does sustained damage to the government after a scandal (Tompson and Tillotsen, 1999: 49), pressuring the minister to resign and inclined to structurally reform the quango.
Motion of no
confidence;
parliament does not accept answers of minister; strong expressions of disappointment; no restoration of trust;”This should not have happened”; “The minister has proven that he/she cannot be trusted”; ”You lost our trust”; “We cannot move on from this”; ”He cannot get away with this”.
In the following section (chapter 5), we give a chronological overview of the four cases, after which we shortly present the results of the analysis of each case. Then, we move on to the comparative analysis (chapter 6) that shows the differences and similarities between the cases.
5
Cases
5.1 Chronological overview
5.1.1 ProRail
ProRail is a Dutch railway company that is responsible for the maintenance of the railways. ProRail used to be a part of the Dutch National Railways NS (in Dutch: Nationale Spoorwegen), but in the 90s the two companies were separated to enable competition on the railways.12 ProRail was privatized in 2005 and operated as a state owned company, in order to increase efficiency and performance.13
However, the privatization was reversed in 2016 after some incidents occurred. The organization struggled with the execution of their main task, which is maintaining the railways. These problems often resulted in delays and accidents, especially during the winter. Several other incidents, for instance ICT errors and derailed trains, have occurred throughout the years.14
Another issue of ProRail was that they had exceeded their budget multiple times with millions of Euros. A variety of projects of ProRail showed that the organization had little financial control. For instance, the new railway between Schiphol and Lelystad cost 260 million Euros more than anticipated and the renewal of the platforms of several cities similarly led to deficits of millions of Euros.15
Besides the problematic performance and the deficits of ProRail, the organization has had trouble sharing information with the parliament, and with the designated undersecretary, Mrs. Wilma Mansveld16In 2013, a Dutch newspaper revealed that the Ministry of Infrastructure had an important internal report of ProRail in possession, which was never shared with Mansveld, nor with the parliament.
At the same time, in 2013, the so-called Fyra-debacle reached its boiling point. A fast connection between Amsterdam and Brussels, which was occupied by new trains of the company Fyra, had a lot of problems and cost about 200 million Euros.17 In 2013, the cabinet decided to stop working with Fyra because of the problems and the high costs. The parliament
12 NS (N.B), ‘Verantwoordelijkheden’. Retrieved from:
http://www.ns.nl/over-ns/de-spoorsector/verantwoordelijkheden.html (visited on May 22nd 2017).
13 Kamerstukken I, 2012-2013, Parlementair Onderzoek Privatisering/Verzelfstandiging Overheidsdiensten. 14NOS (2016), ‘Bevroren wissels en veel te dure stations: ProRail had veel problemen’. Retrieved from:
http://nos.nl/artikel/2138123-bevroren-wissels-en-veel-te-dure-stations-prorail-had-veel-problemen.html (visited on April 16th 2017).
15 Idem.
16 Zuidervaart, B. (2013), ‘Mansveld hield problemen bij spoor achter’. Retrieved from:
https://www.trouw.nl/home/mansveld-hield-problemen-bij-spoor-achter~abcd4554/ (visited on April 16th 2017). 17 NU (2013), ‘Kabinet stopt definitief met Fyra’. Retrieved from:
started a parliamentary inquiry, which was presented two years later on October 28th 2015. The report ‘The Traveler in the Cold’ critiqued the role of undersecretary Mansveld in the Fyra debacle.
Also in 2015, the relationship between ProRail and Wilma Mansveld appeared to be problematic. This became clear when on September 9th in 2015, the new president director of ProRail, Pier Eringa, came forward by stating that ProRail was instructed by the Ministry of Infrastructure to delay bad news. Mansveld stated that Eringa took his words back (Mansveld, September 9th 2015).
After Mansveld informed the parliament about a possible deficit of 475 million Euros, a debate took place on September 29th 2015, in which a motion of no-confidence was filed. 18 During the debate the legitimate use of financial sources was central. In the end, the debate was cut short, because the parliament wanted more information and asked Mansveld to answer the remaining questions by letter and to send documents about recent stakeholder meetings and letters from the accountant of ProRail.19 The parliament also pleated for an external investigation. The undersecretary agreed and said she was determined to step up (Mansveld, October 15th 2015).
However, during that time, the report ‘The Traveler in the Cold’ about the Fyra-debacle of 2013, was presented.20 The report that was published on October 28th 2015, concluded that the parliament was not, or incorrectly informed several times. Mansveld took responsibility for the Fyra-debacle and decided to resign. Roughly a year later, the new undersecretary Dijksma, decided to increase control over ProRail by transitioning its status from a state-owned company to a ZBO, on December 9th 2016. Transitioning the privatized organization closer to the public sector would allow the undersecretary to take direct responsibility for ProRail.21
5.1.2 Dutch Tax Administration
The Dutch Tax Administration is a government organization that functions at arm’s length of the Ministry of Finance, while levying taxes, detecting and prosecuting tax fraud and paying
18 Handelingen II, 2015-2016, nr. 7, item 32, pp. 45. Debat over ProRail. 19 Handelingen II, 2015-2016, nr. 7, item 32, pp. 44.
out allowances.22 Because the world is changing the Tax Administration wanted to modernize communication and improve its ICT systems.23 Therefore, this organization is implementing a large-scale reorganization since 2015: the Investment Agenda (in Dutch: Investeringsagenda). In order to reach the goals, the idea was for the Tax Administration to scrap 5000 low-skilled administrative jobs, because these jobs would no longer fit the new, modern Tax Administration. In order to modernize the organization 1500 high-skilled employees would be hired to work with the new ICT systems.24 In order to achieve this, a temporary severance scheme called Switch was introduced in January 2016 as part of the Investment Agenda.25
However, this idea did not work out like anticipated. In September 2016 already 7280 people had shown interest to apply for Switch (Wiebes, September 14th 2016), wanting to leave the organization. In the end, between 4900 and 5100, especially high-skilled employees could make use of this severance scheme, while the goal was to scrap low-skilled jobs (Wiebes, September 14th 2016). Also, older employees from over the 60 left the organization under favorable conditions, in which Switch operated as an early exit settlement (RUV-settlement, in Dutch: Regeling voor Vervroegde Uittreding). Because of the popularity of Switch, the scheme cost 66 million Euros more than anticipated. In July 2016, a proposal was filed to stop applications for Switch.26
In order to ensure that future arrangements would not be established in this problematic way, Wiebes informed the parliament in a letter (Wiebes, October 24th 2016) that he was taking a few measures. He appointed a commission of Elder Men, that is evaluating the decision-making processes of the Tax Administration. The financial decision-making of the Tax Administration was further put under legal restraint on October 12th 2016. The Tax Administration is now placed under the Ministry of Finance, and the management of the Tax Administration functions according to the DG-model instead of a model with a Board of Directors.
22 Rijksoverheid (N.N), ‘Wat zijn de taken en bevoegdheden van de Belastingdienst?’. Retrieved from:
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/inkomstenbelasting/vraag-en-antwoord/wat-zijn-de-taken-en-bevoegdheden-van-de-belastingdienst (visited on April 13th 2017).
23 Brief Investeringsagenda, Kamerstukken II 2014/15, 31 066, nr. 236, pp. 2.
24 König, E. (2016), ‘Waarom wil iedereen weg bij de Belastingdienst?’. Retrieved from:
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/06/02/waarom-wil-iedereen-weg-bij-de-belastingdienst-1624089-a100913
(visited on April 18th 2017).
25 Belastingdienst (2016), ‘Waarborgen continuïteit en modernisering Belastingdienst’. Retrieved from:
https://belastingdienst-in-beeld.nl/waarborgen-continuiteit-en-modernisering-belastingdienst/ (visited on April 19th 2017).
26 Wiebes, E. (2016), ‘Feitenrelaas bij vertrekregeling Belastingdienst’. Retrieved from:
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/publicaties/2016/10/12/feitenrelaas-bij-vertrekregeling-belastingdienst
5.1.3 Schiphol-fire
The Schiphol-fire was an incident that occurred on the night of October 26th 2005. A fire, that took the lives of eleven detained immigrants, started in the K-Wing of a detention centre in Schiphol-Oost. Authorities assumed that an inmate had deliberately caused the fire, by throwing a burning cigarette in his trash can.27 The Dutch Safety Board, however, brought out a report that puts the blame on the organizations that were responsible for the detention center: the Custodial Institutions Agency (DJI) (in Dutch: Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen) and the Government Buildings Agency (in Dutch: Rijksgebouwendienst).
The report critiqued the actions of the organizations that led up to the fire, and their actions during, or even after the fire. The whole situation – from the evacuation of the people to the identification of the bodies – was chaotic. The conclusion of the report was that there would have been no (or less) deaths if the responsible parties (the DJI of the Ministry of Justice, The Government Buildings Agency of the Ministry of Housing (VROM) and the municipality of Haarlemmermeer) had followed the rules and regulations of fire safety.28 Because of these critiques, the responsible ministers – minister Donner from the Ministry of Justice, and minister Dekker from the former Ministry of VROM – resigned on September 21st 2006, even before a debate was held with them about the report.
As a result of the fire, the government set up a program for fire safety in order to prevent such incidents in the future. The program lays emphasis on the role of the responsible actors, a proactive attitude of these actors and a clear vision with regard to fire safety (Eindrapportage Actieprogramma Brandveiligheid, 2009).
5.1.4 Pgb-debacle
Pgb is a personal care budget system for people that cannot take care of themselves, either because of old age, illness or handicaps.29 People with a pgb get a budget and can choose a personal caretaker. Since January 1st 2005, the payment of the pgb-budgets is carried out by the Social Security Bank (in Dutch: Sociale Verzekeringsbank, SVB). They introduced a new payment system in which payments did not go directly to the caretaker, but via the SVB. After the SVB took over this responsibility ten thousands of pgb-caretakers did not receive
27 Trouw (N.B), ‘NFI betwijfelt oorzaak Schipholbrand’. Retrieved from:
https://www.trouw.nl/home/nfi-betwijfelt-oorzaak-schipholbrand~adb53f18/ (visited on April 21st 2017).
28 Sturm, E. (2006), ‘Ministers Donner en Dekker treden af na rapport’. Retrieved from:
https://www.trouw.nl/home/ministers-donner-en-dekker-treden-af-na-rapport~aecd0e31/ (visited on April 20th 2017).
their money for months. Another problem was that the SVB was paying out money without following the legal guidelines.
In this case, a total of 17 debates took place with undersecretary van Rijn of the Ministry of Public Health, between February 4th 2015 and February 23th 2017. Throughout all the debates, the main issue was that the parliament believed that the undersecretary was aware of the risks of the new payment system and the magnitude of the actual problems, but did not share truthful information.
In a debate on March 26th 2015, a motion of no-confidence was filled against the undersecretary, whereby the opposition recited its trust. Van Rijn survived the motion, because the majority of the parliament did not support the motion.30 In a debate on April 29th 2015, van Rijn promised that until May 15th 2015 he would ensure that all the caretakers got their salary.31 Van Rijn (May 18th 2015) was positive about the realization of that target. The suggestion for van Rijn to resign came up several times, but he survived all the debates that took place.32 To the contrary, the president of the Board of Directors of the SVB was laid off by undersecretary of Social Affairs, Mrs. Klijnsma on February 1st 2016.33
5.2 Case results
5.2.1 ProRail
Parliament – Minister
An analysis of the ProRail debate that took place on September 29th 2015,34 confirmed that the relation between undersecretary Mansveld and the parliament was problematic. In the debate, one member of parliament stated that the problems with ProRail were ongoing and that the list of incidents was never ending.35 The lack of communication between Mansveld and the parliament was a prominent issue in this debate.
Figure 2 (presented on the following page) shows the presence of trust during the ProRail debate. We see that there was more distrust than low levels of trust between the parliament and undersecretary Mansveld.
30 Trouw (2015), ‘Motie van wantrouwen tegen van Rijn om pgb’. Retrieved from:
https://www.trouw.nl/home/motie-van-wantrouwen-tegen-van-rijn-om-pgb~a61e5d8b/ (visited on April 21st 2017).
31 Handelingen II, 2014-2015, nr. 82, item 4, pp. 22. Problemen SVB met pgb’s.
32 See for example: Handelingen II, 2014–2015, 25 657, nr. 147, pp. 12. Persoonsgebonden Budgetten [report], or: Handelingen II, 2016-2017, nr. 55, item 2. Vragenuur: vragen Keizer.
33 NU (2016), ‘Voorzitter Sociale Verzekeringsbank ontslagen na pgb problemen’. Retrieved from:
http://www.nu.nl/politiek/4202267/voorzitter-sociale-verzekeringsbank-ontslagen-pgb-problemen.html (visited on April 21st 2017).
34 Handelingen II, 2015-2016, nr. 7, item 32, Debat over ProRail. 35 Handelingen II, 2015-2016, nr. 7, item 32, pp. 13.
